Below was the last post for a week or so. I have much higher priorities at the moment which must take precedence over Value Ireland and SayNoTo1890 and they’re currently suffering from lack of attention.

SayNoTo1890 will return on April 1st. In the meantime, please feel free to view the static ValueIreland.com website to get loads of hints, tips and articles for living in the consumer Ireland of today, or the SayNoto1890.com website to get your geographical alternative numbers to 1890, 1850 and 0818 numbers.

You can still contact us at info@valueireland.com if you have any geographical alternative numbers for any businesses using 1850, 1890 or 0818 numbers. We’ll publish them when we’re back.

For this site I was doing some research on the costs of calling 1850 and 1890 numbers from mobiles and different landline providers. One thing that came across that was vaguely interesting was the hours that companies deem to be peak and off-peak.

All the mobile companies, except 3 Mobile, treat the hours from 08:00 to 18:00 as being their peak time. As far as I can tell, the 3 Mobile company don’t distinguish between peak and off peak at all.

In theory, if it’s the case (the call cost information in general on the 3 Mobile site is pretty sketchy), this could possibly be a good a thing - depending on the call cost per minute you’re charged all the time. But on the basis that if things seem too good to be true, they probably are, and given past experience with 3 Mobile, I’d be a bit wary.

I’m obviously catching up on old links that I’d found related to this site - this one from Michele Neylon in September last year. His comments as follows show an interesting dilemma for businesses thinking of getting 1850/1890 or 1800 numbers:

We are based outside Dublin, so for a lot of people there still is the mental block with ringing an 059 number instead of an 01 or a region free 1850 / 1890

I know from my perspective that I don’t really mind where a business is based, and given a choice, since I always use a mobile phone, I’d much rather the 059 compared to the 1850/1890 number.

On the flip side, I’ll mostly stay away from a business who only provide a mobile number as the contact number for the businesses. It may be a mental block as above, but if I’m going to be dealing with someone for business, I’d at least like to know they have somewhere I can call round to if I had to.

I thought I’d referenced this article before, but an interesting post which is worth a read is here from 2007 from David Behan. I’ll quote the ending here, but check out the interesting points in the full article:

Businesses… if you really want to save customers money, get rid of the 1850/1890 numbers and get 1800 numbers instead. Consumers… don’t be fooled by these numbers and save the regular numbers to your phone instead.

Why aren’t the 1890/1850 numbers included in the free minutes? Probably because there’s a nice sum of money being collected every month that no one is giving out about! Is ComReg aware of it? Who knows? Is it making that much money to be giving out about? Once again, who knows? I just felt like ranting about it this morning but I’d love to know how much they scim off the top using these numbers!

I found an interesting link from the Consumerist (Shoppers Bite Back) which linked to this article from VOIP-News - PBX Hell: 50-Plus Hacks and Tips to Get to a Real Person at Any Corporation in 10 Seconds or Less.

The article is focused on people calling American companies, and is part of a campaign within the US which included the GetHuman website. This site provides the sequence of buttons to press for different companies customer service numbers which will bring you straight through to a human operator.

A funny take on this from LifeHacker recommends using expletives to get straight through to an operator when faced with an automated voice recognition system.

The IVR operator gave me a list of options, I said, “F*@#!” and he said: “I think you said you want to talk to a customer service agent. Is this correct?”

Back to the VOIP-News article - one of their points in their 50 tips was as follows:

Very interesting - for companies who provide freephone 1800, CallSave 1850 and LoCall 1890 numbers have to pay for these numbers every time a customer calls them on them. So, the less time someone spends on hold on the phone, the less money they have to pay.

Firstly, to anyone who may have subscribed to the blog in the last few days, please check your subscriptions as you may have signed up for the Value Ireland Blog instead (not that that’s a bad thing). I had the subscribe links to the right pointed to the wrong blog, but it’s all fixed now, so you can click now and really be subscribed to SayNoTo1890 and get the regular updates of new geographical numbers.

Secondly, we have changed the website address now as part of the consolidation of the blog and website into this single presentation. The original blogspot address is now no longer valid - you should now only use www.saynoto1890.com to access all our information.

This was published recently in the You and Your Money print magazine, and it’s available here online also. This is only a subsection of the whole article - just the bits relevant to this website.

Beat the rip-off merchants! Brenda McNally rounds up the top ten rip-offs to watch out for.

From banking errors and dodgy billing practices to straightforward overcharging, big business has little hesitation about squeezing Irish consumers. Fortunately, industry watchdogs and consumer groups are flexing their muscles on our behalf.

But if you really don’t want to be ripped off in 2008, don’t repeat the mistakes of the past.

Take a look at our list of the top 10 ways consumers were ripped off in 2007 and, if you think you’ve been overcharged, don’t just pay whatever price you’re asked: exercise your vocal chords, query the bill and complain.

….

Locall and Callsave

Locall (1890) and Callsave (1850) telephone numbers look like a cost-saving option on paper, but that’s not the case for all of us. Irish consumers who are signed up to special telephone and mobile packages are needlessly paying up to €5 a time to ring ‘low cost’ telephone numbers.

This is because these numbers are excluded from the popular mobile and landline phone deals with exclusive minutes. The Consumers’ Association of Ireland (CAI) has highlighted the issue, calling on phone companies to include 1890 or 1850 numbers in their deals.

It has also said that firms with 1850, 1890 and 0818 numbers should do more to make their customers aware of how to make their calls cheaper.

If you’re on a special telephone package, make sure to check how much Locall and Callsave will cost you – if they cost more, try to find out the ordinary number for whatever company you’re looking to call. Why hold…

…

Alternative LandLine Numbers

You can beat the trap if you dial the ordinary landline numbers of companies: these should be listed on their websites or in telephone books alongside their 1890, 1850 and 0818 numbers. You can take down these numbers for a start:

AIB Phone Banking: 1890 242424 – use 01 6670024

Bank Of Ireland Phone Banking: 1890 365 365 – use 01 4044470

Bord Gais Energy Supply: 1850 632 632 – use 01 8190395

ESB Customer Supply: 1850 372 372 – use 01 8529534

VHI: 1850 44 44 44 – use 056 7753200

VIVAS Call Centre: 1850 71 77 17 – use 056 7753200

Ticketmaster Ireland: 0818 719300 – use 01 4569569.